Surprise!! & Graduation Festa‏

This is from last week but the internet was too slow to send it - oh Africa......
 
Bom dia!
    This week was a blur and I didn't write one thing down so I'm recounting things from the pictures I took...

 Monday, we took our newly arrived local missionary (the 14 hour train ride one) over to Amalias house 

to get some clothes for his mission.  One of the missionary sisters'  moms has rallied people to gather clothes,

 supplies, suitcases, and money for the local kids that are called on missions. It's a huge service  because 

these kids are stretched to the max earning the oney needed for passports, exams, yellow fever shot, etc. 

They don't have money for clothes. One of our favorite Institute teachers, Zeka, was there getting some clothes.

 He'll be the first missionary to serve for the Dondo Branch, the little branch that we worked in for 9 months! 

He is beyond excited!! Amalia is great to oversee this. She's juggling husband and 3 kids, being District YW

 President, teaching at schools around the country, and helping to train and outfit the local missionaries that 

are called. She's a busy woman!! 

They have no idea what the American sizes mean so I was the 'hunter/digger-outer', going throughout the clothes to find the things that might fit them. They are so small. They need 141/2 shirts and 31" pants. But they are SO happy when they find something that will work for them!
We had to do a little adjusting, like me hemming these pants for him.

This is Carlotta. She has the most bubbly, fun personality! Dad and I get a kick out of her!! She's going to Portugal and needs some warmer clothes. She has none and they are hard to find here. She thought she might have a nice raincoat - until she tried it on. But she didn't get bummed like most of them would, she just burst out laughing and waved her arms around to show how huge it was! Such a character!! 

It was transfers, so that night we went to the airport to take an elder already serving here and the new one that just came in on the train. There were four other local guys there getting ready to fly out, so SIX missionaries leaving at one time from the area! That's a big deal for a country that only has 6,000 members!! It's the first plane ride for all of them except for the guy from Maputo that had begun his mission here in Beira. They were EXCITED!! And a little nervous...;)

 This is Ernesto. He's one of our Seminary teachers and took Mariana's place when she was released. He's the only member in his family and is headed to Angola.

 My favorite ADHD gal, AnaMaria, was there. Oh, I love her! How can you be a poor widow with eight kids and always be smiling and full of energy?? When we got to the airport, I was saying hi and talking to a group of people and somebody came up from behind and started kissing my neck. That was a first... I could see the expressions of the people in front of me and they had these stunned looks on their faces. It was Ana Maria. She is SO not a Mozambiquen!! There is nothing stoic or reserved about her...

 I told her about the letter from the wife of Aubrey's new mission president (their son baptized Ana and her husband) and we went through and counted the miracles that connected all of us. She kept nodding and saying 'Sim!!' (Yes!) with each one.  That's her daughter, Cecilia, between us. She's 17 and the fifth elder, Elvis, is her serious boyfriend. They plan to get married after his mission. That's why Ana was at the airport. Cecilia is polar opposite of her mother. She's calm, quiet, and lady-like. She kinda rolls her eyes at some of her mom's antics. It's kind of funny to watch them together - as different as night and day, but they are very close.

  Mariana was there to see Ernesto off. It was her birthday last week so I made her a baby cake when I made the other girls' big cake and gave her two of my tops for her mission.

  We had to stay around and wait for three elders coming in. When we dropped them off, I saw these at the apartments. I thought they were pretty clever, in a kooky sort of way, and asked this elder to demonstrate how they worked. It's full water bottles taped to an iron bar. :)

  At class the next day, I was excited to see Maria, one of the original primary presidency that I trained and worked with in our first branch. I hadn't seen her in awhile, and thought she might be inactive, but she said that she's active, she just moved to another branch when they split the branches a few months before.

Here are the brave Kretlys getting ready to leave on a road trip to the outlying branches and I mean "really in the boondocks" outlying. One place is in the jungle and there are not hotels so the have to stay in their truck. Last year, he had this pop-up tent put on it and that's a fridge/freezer that they keep their food in. Sister Krelty is a trooper and has the best attitude. I really admire that about her.

A little bit later, I got a call from Margarida asking if I could come to the church to look at an English test certificate that she has. She is one of the three kids that I'm trying to help get into BYU-HI. They want a education so bad but there are alot of obstacles for them. Like the English test that they are required to take: it costs $165 or 495 metacaiz. That's an impossible amount of money for them. To put it in perspective, the average salary is 50 metacaiz a day. So, we are trying to get BYU-HI to send the tests here and I'll proctor the test and send them back. They said they would - still waiting for them to send them... Margarida was hoping that the test she took on her mission would count for the test. While there, she told me that she had an ecclesiastical interview with Pres. Kretly. I told her that he was gone. Turns out that the office forgot to tell her that he wouldn't be available at that time. Ugh! So she rode the chapa 30 minutes each way (and spent her little money ) for nothing. The district president is supposed to do the interview but he couldn't because he forgot his password and user name to be into the system because he rarely uses it. So she went to plan B and got an appointment with Pres. Krelty. Waiting is a major part of an African's life and they deal with it like they do everything else - stoically.

  When I helped Mariana go through her clothes for her mission, we made a shopping list of things she needed to buy. She said that she needed a black skirt for graduation but I found one in her clothes. It had a long slit and was too long so I said I would fix it. I took it to Manual and paid a dollar to have him do it. Then I washed it for her but couldn't dry it in the dryer so I did what the locals do - hung it outside. The guards rigged it up in the tree and kept an eye on it for me. 15 minutes later, it was dry and we took it down.

Moeses had to jump a few times to catch the branch and hold it down for me because the guys that tied it up for me was a little taller....
Moeses is clapping at our success. He's the enthusiastic guard - he boogies with me when I go walking. ;)

Mariana met me at my class so I could give her her skirt and her graduation present - a pair of crystal earrings to wear for graduation. She loved them! But the thing she loved most of all was the letter from her mission president welcoming her to the mission. She whooped and did a jig in the grass! This is her 'crazy face.' Love those bug eyes!! Silly girl!

 Later that night, we got a big surprise!! Brooke's baby came a month early!!! Dad had just gone to bed so I went and woke him up to tell him. He was a little disoriented and said, "What?? She had her baby tonight?" Earlier that day, she had texted that she was going to the hospital but they had sent her back home. She didn't text us when she went back to the hospital. I guess I texted too often for updates, so this time she waited until she'd had the baby. ;) 

Rockwell Brian Hoffmann was born - only 6 pounds but healthy and with lots of dark hair!

The next day, Dad got up early and spent half the day calling around and going to the airline office to change all my tickets. I leave next Thursday! Wahoo!! U.S. here I come!
I spent most of the day packing. I'm taking back all the souvenirs that we bought so we don't have to pack them on our Africa trip at the end of our missions. I had to wrap everything in packing paper that I had scavenged from the neighbors when they moved in next door. It took a long time but I filled both suitcases and was feeling ahead of the game a little bit. But....there's not enough room for my clothes (and they're all hammered anyway) so I'm borrowing Brooke's for the week. New clothes - yippee!!
I took a break from packing and we went to meet the missionaries at the church. Here they are in a broken-down chapela that was outside of the chapel.

This seminary class was just getting out while we were there.

Here's the dirt road in front of the chapel. Somebody dug a hole (who knows why?) and somebody else covered it with branches. Dad tested it out and drove over it. It held!

Saturday, we zipped to a little curio shop that we'd found to pick up canoes that we had carved for Grant and baby Rockwell. It's a hole-in-the-wall that's packed with all sorts of oddities. Like a giant snakeskin:

A skull:

Here's the owner:

That night, we went to a 'festa' for Mariana's graduation from medical school. It was at her aunt and uncle's house. Her parents had ridden 266 miles on the bus for the graduation and we were really interested to meet them. Her dad is a pastor and we didn't know what to expect when we met him - we at least expected him to be very stiff and formal, but he wasn't at all. He was very warm and had a cute sense of humor, like Marianna, and he was very gracious and thanked us for helping his daughter and being a good influence on her. We thought he was great, as was the rest of the family. Here's the receiving line. I'm talking to her dad. That's her Grandma in the white t-shirt. When she saw me, she grabbed me and gave me a big hug and kiss and chattered away in Portuguese, calling me Mama. I caught about every 10th word....

Later, the grandma changed into her party clothes and I asked her to take a picture with me. After we took it, I showed it to her and she exclaimed loudly, "oh my gosh" or " hallelujah" or something. Everybody started laughing and I couldn't keep a straight face for the picture! She was a pistol!!

Mariana holding up her diploma with her mom and dad.

Eating our sheep and other vittles

Sunday, was supposed to be Branch Conference and my Primary kids were going to sing the two songs that I'd taught them. But an hour before church, the branch president called and said something to me about the kids singing. I told him that we'd sing for the rest hymn that day. Well...apparently I didn't get the whole message because while I was up on the stand to play the piano, dad sent me a text that said, "Did you understand that the Branch Conference has been cancelled?" Uhhh, say what??? So, I went into panic mode because I didn't know if the Pres. was still planning on the kids singing or not. And I had capalanas for choir robes and bread and candy for afterward - in other words, we were 'locked and loaded.' So, I had the elder that was directing sidle up to the Pres. and ask him. He said yes. Whew!! Next problem, there were only about 10 kids in Sacrament Meeting....
By the time it was time for us to sing, more people had come and we ended up with 32 kids and they rocked the house! Here we are after Sacrament Meeting, don't ya love their little capalana sashes:

That's our week!! I'm off to the USA!!! Talk to ya on the other side of the pond!

Love you lots and lots!!! Mama